


In Darkness

by Aequoria



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, M/M, Magic, Romance, Spells & Enchantments, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-11-02 13:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20764913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aequoria/pseuds/Aequoria
Summary: When the clock strikes midnight, go into the room with the big mirror, the one with the golden frame. Take a candle with you, and hold it before you. Close your eyes and whisper the words I will teach you. When you open them again, if you are lucky, you will see the face of your true love over your shoulder. If not, you will see the face of the Devil.And if I don’t see anything?You had better pray you do, boy. There is always something there. Always.(An old wives’ tale captures the imaginations of Noctis and Prompto, but they soon find that dabbling in magic leads to more than they bargained for.)





	In Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theorchardofbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorchardofbones/gifts).

> This is a little gift fic for my good friend Mallow, who wrote me an INCREDIBLE ghost romance fic called Resonance— please go check it out, it is AMAZING! 
> 
> This is also based on the short story May Day Eve, by Nick Joaquin, which is a really interesting story with an infamously long first sentence. I think if Googled, there is an educational site with the full text, although there are some typos.

_When the clock strikes midnight, go into the room with the big mirror, the one with the golden frame. Take a candle with you, and hold it before you. Close your eyes and whisper the words I will teach you. When you open them again, if you are lucky, you will see the face of your true love over your shoulder. If not, you will see the face of the Devil._

_And if I don’t see anything?_

_You had better pray you do, boy. There is always something there. Always._

* * *

“No way,” Prompto says. “No way that’s real.”

Noctis throws his head back and laughs. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching out to punch his friend gently on the arm. “Believe what you will.”

“Dude, we’ve _gotta_ try it.”

Noctis risks a glance over to the passenger seat. Prompto is beaming, but when isn’t he? Wild hair, wild laughter, wilder ideas— Prompto lives his life with the kind of freedom Noctis can only dream of.

Tonight, he’s hoping that dream can become reality.

It’s the fifteenth birthday of Iris Amicitia, heiress to the Amicitia family’s defence and security empire. Her family has provided private security for the Lucis Caelums for generations; but beyond a professional relationship, their families had always been close friends. Her father, Clarus, dotes on his only child, so of course her _quinceañera_ celebrations tonight would be a huge affair.

Ignis is going to be visiting from his fancy university, and Luna and Ravus are probably on a plane right now. Even Prompto’s been invited, and Noctis is very much looking forward to spending time with his friends, and letting _loose_ for once. Clarus is even letting them stay over for the whole weekend. All in all, it’s promising to be a wonderful break from the rigid monotony of his life, and Noctis is determined to enjoy every moment of it.

“I’d rather go fishing,” Noctis says. “There’s a forest on the hills just behind the Amicitia Manor, and I’m pretty sure there’s a lake with good fishing.”

Prompto whines, kicking his feet. “Noct, fishing’s for _old people._ If you’re gonna go to the lake, we could at least go swimming!”

“Fine, fine!” Noctis laughs again, and reaches out to pat Prompto’s leg placatingly.

The wind makes playthings of their carefully-sculpted hair, and carries the beat of their music away to anyone who’ll listen. Behind them, the sun begins its westward crawl; the road stretches on before them, the promise of good times and good friends urging them on.

* * *

_ _

Traffic on the way means that they are fashionably late when they arrive at the manor, and most of the guests are already present. After they hand their coats and gift bags to Jared, they hang towards the edges of the crowd until they can spot someone they know.

Prompto is practically vibrating with anxious energy. He has always been shy, but paradoxically one of the most extroverted people Noctis knows. He hopes they find someone to talk to soon, before Prompto gets too nervous.

“Ooh, I spy Ravus!” Prompto exclaims, clutching at Noctis’ arm and pointing with _far_ too much enthusiasm for someone who has just noticed Ravus Nox Fleuret. But where Ravus is, Luna usually can be found, and Noctis can’t keep the smile off his face at the thought.

He lets Prompto drag him over to the Fleuret siblings, who both look stunning in matching blue and white outfits. Luna has donned a glittery party hat; Ravus’ only concession to the celebration seems to be a minute lightening of his scowl.

Noctis gives Luna a hug and Ravus a firm handshake. Prompto goes to hug them both, because try as he might, even Ravus can’t resist Prompto’s charm.

“Are you staying the weekend too?” Prompto asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Please say you are!”

“We are not,” Ravus says, then at the devastated look on Prompto’s face, graciously adds, “unfortunately.”

“We have to be back in Tenebrae by tomorrow afternoon, but we would have loved to stay longer.” Luna’s regret is sincere.

“Next time then, at my 21st?” Noctis asks hopefully, and is pleased when Luna nods.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world! But by the way, is your father here?” Luna enquires politely. “I meant to say hello but couldn’t find him.”

“He’s arriving tomorrow, he just needed to take care of some business so we came ahead. I guess you’ll miss him tomorrow, so I’ll tell him you both say hi.”

Ravus frowns, but thankfully decides not to comment. Noctis takes the opportunity to elbow past him towards the long table groaning under the weight of the food, and swipes a fish finger with glee.

Out of nowhere, Iris pops up beside him. Newly fifteen, she’s dressed to the nines in a frilly red dress and combat boots, a party hat perched jauntily on her head.

“My friends want to say hi but they’re too shy to do it themselves,” she announces, and turns her head to stick her tongue out at a gaggle of other teenage girls hovering near the live band. “They think you’re cute.”

“Oh, God,” Noctis mutters, hiding his face in one hand as Prompto cackles beside him. “You’re all way too young.”

“I mean, you _are_ objectively cute, but I have incriminating evidence that you’re also a big dork. Come on, do you wanna say hi to them? It would make them so happy!”

Noctis goes, but only because it’s her birthday and he’s known her since she was born. He pretends not to see the look of evil glee she gets at his embarrassment.

There is dancing and singing and laughter, and Noctis has never seen Iris look so happy. The manor is _alive_, as though the ancient halls themselves are bursting to celebrate their young mistress’ life, and even the forest beyond offers a chorus of birdsong and the piercing cry of an eagle.

Hours later, when the evening finally winds down and the majority of guests have left, Noctis finds himself sitting in a circle with most of his closest friends. They’re already decked out in their Sleepytime Finery, as Prompto calls it, but none of them are close to nodding off. Instead, they’re each holding mugs of steaming hot chocolate, except for Ignis, who is one of those monsters who can have black coffee at 11 PM without repercussions.

They’re swapping scary stories. Noctis is worried about giving Iris nightmares, but it looks like Prompto is the one freaking out the most. Noctis hides his smile behind his cup as Ignis manages to terrify his best friend yet again.

“I have one too!” Prompto announces. He looks at Noctis with very large eyes, and Noctis is sure that look is supposed to mean something, but he simply shrugs and waves for Prompto to continue. He seems to hesitate, then glances at Ignis and finds his resolve. “Well, it’s not really mine, and it’s not _necessarily_ scary.”

“Lame,” Iris says. “Tell it anyway.”

“Noct was telling me a story he heard when he was a kid, about how to see the face of your true love before you meet them. Something about a mirror and a candle, right?”

“And a spell,” Noctis says. “But you’re gonna have to try harder for a convincing story.”

“How are you _not_ interested? I wanna know who my true love is!” Prompto grabs a pillow off the sofa and clutches it to his chest.

“Me too!” Iris says, her eyes now shining with delight.

“While the idea does sound tempting,” says Ignis, “I do wonder if knowing their identity would affect any future interactions. It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Aw, _Iggy_, that’s no fun—”

“I could, for example,” Ignis interrupts pointedly, “see Prompto’s face in that mirror, and believe him to be my true love when he is nothing of the sort.”

Noctis _howls_ with laughter. Prompto cries _Iggy, that hurts!_ and Iris tries unsuccessfully to turn her giggles into a coughing fit.

A knock on the door, and Clarus enters with a tray of snacks.

“You really all should be going to bed,” he says, but the look in his eyes is fond. “But I assume you won’t, so I hope these will tide you over until you finally decide you’ve had enough.”

“You’re the _best!_” Iris jumps up and hugs her father, and Noctis feels a little pang of longing at the sight.

“Don’t stay up too late, though.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.” Prompto shudders.

“We were telling stories, Papa! Scary ones.”

“Scary stories?” Clarus sounds amused. “Iris, you know Prompto can’t handle them.”

Prompto makes a little whining noise in protest as the room bursts into laughter again. Clarus comes over to ruffle his hair, and Prompto stops pouting to melt into the touch like he always does when anyone gives him affection. It’s adorable and so very _Prompto_, and even Ignis has to hide a fond smile.

“It’s not that scary anymore. Prompto started talking about _true love_.” Iris sticks her tongue out at him.

“There’s a _spell!_ Stop leaving out the spell!”

Beside them, Clarus has gone rigid. Noctis frowns, curious.

“Magic isn’t real,” Clarus says. His smile is tight, voice carefully controlled. “And even if it were, it’s a foolish thought to play with it.”

“But sir, I just wanted to—”

“We _don’t_ play with magic,” Clarus snarls, and Noctis jumps back. He’s never seen Clarus like this before, furious and _scary_. Not directed at them.

“Papa...” Iris whispers, and it’s enough to shake Clarus out of it.

“I’m sorry, darling.” He bends down and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s just that magic sounds so dangerous, you know. One of the few things an Amicitia can’t fight.”

Iris sighs. “I know, papa, you only mention it like, once a week. It’s only a story.”

Thankfully, Clarus drops the subject. He leaves them with the tray as he retires to bed, and they all spend the rest of the night playing stupid video games until even Ignis began to yawn.

No one mentions magic again.

* * *

Later, when the manor is silent and Noctis lies awake in the room he shares with Prompto, he thinks about the story again.

True love, or soulmates, even. Noctis wonders what it would be like to have one of those. For a while he’d thought it was Ignis, then Luna, then Prompto— then he had wondered why he even bothered, when the concept of a pre-destined love seemed so hard to believe.

Now, though. He does not know why this particular story keeps coming into his mind again and again in this place. Magic may not be real, but there is a small part of him that still wishes for it to be true.

A shifting in the bed beside him, and Prompto pokes his head out of the covers. “Noct?”

Noctis rolls over to meet his best friend’s eyes. “I thought you were asleep.”

Prompto attempts a smile. “Yeah, I was trying. I keep thinking about what you told me though, and then Mr Amicitia’s reaction. I mean, that was _weird_, right? It makes me think there’s something more to it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was weird.” There’s a gleam in Prompto’s eye that Noctis recognises, and he raises his eyebrows at him. “Don’t tell me you’re really going to try it.”

“It’s _harmless_, Noct. Or it should be, anyway. I just... I can’t stop thinking about it. Like every time I imagine anything else, it’s like there’s something compelling me to remember that mirror.”

Noctis knows.

Unbidden, a tendril of fear trickles into him.

“Are you really gonna do it?” he whispers.

“I can’t get it out of my head, Noct. I _have_ to try.” Prompto sits up and leans on one hand, still facing Noctis. “Are you with me?”

_Always,_ Noctis wants to say, has said to Prompto since the day they’d first met. But the little tendril of fear (of _reason_) stays and wraps itself around his throat until all he can say is, “No.”

Prompto’s silent for a beat, and then wriggles out of bed. From the bedside table he takes the golden candlestick— still unlit— and breathes out noisily. “I’m just going to... to light this thing, and then I’m gonna go down. It’s stupid, I know, but I gotta _know_, Noct.”

“It’s okay,” Noctis says as Prompto finds a lighter somewhere. “I get it. Just... it’s not real, it’s harmless, right? You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be good. Then you can do it after.” A tiny flame sparks to life, and casts strange shadows on Prompto’s face as he winks. “See ya, buddy.”

Then he disappears silently out of the door, and Noctis is left to wait.

Perhaps he dozes off. Perhaps he lies awake, unaware of the time passing, his mind occupied by a blank, reflective surface, like water. _(Like a mirror—)_ But he seems to blink himself back into existence by the time Prompto gets back, and this time Noctis turns on the bedroom lights. He stares.

Prompto looks different. He can’t put his finger on why. His soft blond hair, his freckled cheeks pink with excitement, and his rumpled nightclothes— they are all the same. It is the look in his eyes, a strange and distant yearning, that makes Noctis _wonder._

“I saw him,” Prompto says, and Noctis’ world slows to a stop.

“Your... true love? Or...”

Prompto doesn’t answer immediately, and Noctis grasps his friend’s hands tightly. His stare is faraway, his smile small and sweet, as though he were one of the many marble sculptures in the downstairs hall.

“I saw him,” he repeats instead of answering, soft and amazed.

True love, surely. When Noctis releases Prompto’s hands, they linger in the air a moment before falling to his lap.

It’s as though Prompto has gone somewhere Noctis can’t follow.

_But I can,_ he thinks. _It’s only a little spell._

“You’re not pulling my leg, are you?” It’s a statement more than a question. Prompto turns his wide blue eyes on Noctis’ and shakes his head. Prompto would never lie to him.

That night, Noctis dreams of mirrors and flames, and the face of his best friend frozen in a smile.

* * *

The next day brings strangeness. Regis arrives, and Noctis wraps his father in a hug tighter than any he’s given since he turned thirteen. Clarus greets his oldest friend with a booming laugh and a slap on the back, and the children all skitter away to play out of sight, like in the old days.

Prompto is both there and not there. No one else seems to notice anything different, not even Ignis. But Noctis catches him in the moments he believes no one is watching, when he stares out of the window as though searching for something, when he passes the large mirror with a smile and a shudder.

But that is in the day.

In the night, Noctis takes the golden candlestick from his bedside table and wanders down to the mirror in the hall. He goes just before midnight, and the whole manor is quiet. Childhood summers spent dodging nannies and bodyguards have given Noctis the gift of stealth when he needs it, and he makes it all the way to the mirror without disturbing anyone.

It’s bigger than he remembers, and from a distance, all he can see in it is the solitary flame from his candle, floating in the blackness. He draws closer, heart pounding, until he stands right in front of it.

The reflected flame flickers, casting deep shadows on the planes of his face until he can barely recognise himself. The fear from the night before is still there, simmering, a beast lying in wait— but he ignores it for what he has to do.

_(Are you with me?) _

_ (Don’t go where I can’t follow—)_

He closes his eyes, and the words from so long ago flow free from his lips like an opened dam.

_Show me,_ he thinks.

He opens his eyes.

There’s nothing there.

In a heartbeat, his candle-flame goes out, and the room is plunged into darkness. Noctis’ eyes don’t get a chance to adjust before a strong arm circles around his waist, and he’s pulled back against a broad, _cold_ chest.

“A little dangerous, don’t you think?” A voice growls low in his ear. Noctis shivers and gasps. “Boys like you shouldn’t be playing with magic like this.”

“I— I was just—“ Noctis struggles against the grip, and to his relief, he is released. He whirls around and backs away until the cold mirror glass hits his spine.

There is a man before him— or more than a man, as Noctis hadn’t even seen him in the mirror or heard him arrive. Tall, taller than anyone he’d ever seen, and just as broad. He’s dressed in a heavy black coat— no shirt, and in the dim moonlight Noctis can barely make out the lines of a tattoo on his chest.

“Who are you?” he asks. With one hand, he gropes around for something to use as a weapon.

“Call me Gladio.” The man smiles, all teeth. “And you?”

Noct’s hand closes around a long, metal object— a candelabra— and he swings it at Gladio by way of response. But Gladio merely catches Noctis’s wrist in one huge hand, raising it up to his face.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not,” Noctis snarls at him, but a simple squeeze of Gladio’s fingers, and the candelabra falls to the floor. The air is quiet save for Noctis’ quick breaths.

“Your name,” Gladio rumbles out, calm as though Noctis hadn’t just tried to attack him.

_Don’t give it to him,_ is the whisper at the back of Noctis’ mind. _Don’t give him that power._

“Noct,” he says instead. “You can call me Noct.”

If Gladio notices the omission, he says nothing about it. “I meant what I said. You shouldn’t be playing around with this kind of magic. You never know what you might invite in.”

“And just what did I invite in?” Noctis asks.

Instead of answering, Gladio lifts Noct’s wrist up higher, closer, until Noctis knows he should be feeling the puffs of warm breath upon his skin. He feels nothing but cold lips instead.

“You’re very warm,” Gladio murmurs. “Your pulse, it rushes. Are you frightened, Noct?”

The world seems so still. Noctis can’t hear anything but the roaring of his own blood in his ears.

“What do you want with me?” he whispers.

“Whatever you allow,” Gladio says, and the flash of sharp teeth is unmistakable.

Noctis thinks of Prompto, of the dreamlike state of him, the wanting, the _yearning_. There is a place his best friend has gone, a place Noctis could not go.

Until now.

Gladio still holds his wrist in a firm grip, gentle despite his clear strength. His eyes are almost black for their darkness. He smells of leather, of cold rain, of deep earth and metal.

_True love, or the Devil._

_Or something far worse?_

Noctis looks at that magnetic smile and decides.

He moves his hand to cup Gladio’s face, draws him down, closer, _closer._ Noctis stands on his toes, Gladio bends to meet him.

Barely an inch between them now, and Noctis can’t feel any breath on his skin. The cold of Gladio’s touch makes him shiver. He looks up into empty, endless eyes, and touches their lips in a kiss.

It’s cold— _cold_, where their mouths meet, where the heat of Gladio’s body should be against his. Noctis is drowning in it. Gladio’s arm wraps around his waist, and the contact makes him gasp into the kiss. Gladio takes it greedily, hungrily, and Noctis cannot help but give him more.

“Noctis?”

His father’s voice. Noctis pushes Gladio away, his heart pounding. The rhythmic tapping of Regis’ cane on the marble grows louder.

“Are you alright? I thought I heard your voice.”

A gentle grip on his chin makes Noctis turn to face Gladio once more. The vampire— for what else could he be— gives him a smile, soft despite the flash of teeth.

“I can come see you again, if you’ll let me,” Gladio says quietly. The smile turns sharp. “If you’re not afraid.”

Noctis huffs out a laugh, his gaze lingering on Gladio’s mouth before flicking up to meet his eyes. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Gladio seems to want to say something, but then thinks better of it. He takes Noctis’ hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, feather-soft and gentle.

Then he turns and flees, and he’s tumbling out the wide window before Noctis can react. He runs over, looks out into the grounds, but Gladio is gone. He can’t even see any footprints. All he hears is the rush of wind, the rustle of leaves, and the distant cry of a bird.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I may develop it into a series, as I have a lot of ideas about Gladio’s backstory...


End file.
